


I Die Every Night With You

by SOMETHINREAL



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Angst, Very Very Mild, dowoon is reminiscent of the past but brian makes it better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 19:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14315658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SOMETHINREAL/pseuds/SOMETHINREAL
Summary: The way they fall happens in two stages: the rise, and the settlement.(alternatively: the briwoon friends to lovers fic where dowoon suggests that they have sex because he's sad about his ex, but brian doesn't mind.)





	I Die Every Night With You

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this idea for so damn long,, i actually made one of those movie style video edits for this but i will never publish it to the internet because i hate it lol

The way they fall happens in two stages: the rise, and the settlement. The first stage, where it all begins, goes like this:

It’s sometime around ten thirty when Dowoon’s phone chimes; the sound loud against the quiet night time air. Right now he’s sat outside of the little twenty-four hour convenience store underneath his apartment; it’s run by Mrs. Noh, who’s the mother of some kid that probably didn’t talk to him in high school. He’s sipping banana milk through a pink straw, scrolling through his twitter feed, doing nothing of much importance. The day doesn’t call for it after all.

 _hey so my boss just beat me up because i stole cash from the register again. you busy?_ The text reads, and it’s from Brian. They’ve been friends since high school, even though Brian had graduated two years prior to Dowoon. Brian had been his best friend, so they kept in contact; Dowoon listened to Brian’s stories of wild parties that he pretended to enjoy going to with his university friends, and Dowoon told him about how all of the girls still went after him even though one) he was very obviously not straight and two) he let them down every single time.

 _I’m at the convenience store under my apartment_ , Dowoon replies, _At one of the tables outside._

He and Brian have always had a different type of relationship. They’re friends, sure, best friends, and it’s not like they’re weird around each other, it’s just more that they have a little bit more than everyone else without realizing it. It’s different, sure it is, but it’s implicit too. They’ve never noticed that their hugs lasted for more than what was deemed normal and that their lips always lingered on the other’s cheeks a second too long.

 _cool_ , Brian responds, _i’m already walking. i’ll be there in literally five minutes._

Dowoon figures that he should pop back into the store to pick up some supplies for the injuries Brian is probably going to have from the beating he took, also, he’s low on gummy bears and they’re only fifty cents a bag. He pays with the change in his pocket and returns to his spot at the blue painted table. He’s timed this perfectly, it looks like, as Brian walks around the corner just as he tears the corner off of his bag of candy. He’s got a split lip and his cheek is red, probably going to bruise a soft purple in the morning.

“Hey there, handsome,” Dowoon says with a grin. Brian pops his collar and scoffs as he sits down across from Dowoon.

“Handsome?” he asks, “dude, have you _seen_ the state of my face right now?” He points to the crimson blood dried and flaking off in little specs by his mouth, then the mark on his cheekbone. Dowoon only hums.  
  
“Yeah, I figured you’d be a mess when you got here so I bought you some stuff to clean yourself up.” He slides over the items he’d purchased; a box of bandages, a package of alcohol wipes, a boiled egg for the bruise.

“You should see the other guy,” Brian jokes, but he doesn’t laugh.

“We both know that you wouldn’t actually hit Mr. Jung back, hyung. Don’t kid yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brian says, “I’m not that disrespectful to my elders. Unlike you-- wait, is this a fucking egg?” Dowoon only nods. Brian laughs, but picks it up and rolls it over his cheek, scrunching his nose up at the pressure against the tender flesh.

“Disrespectful enough to steal cash from the place that pays you. Anyways, it’s like what our mothers used to do when we were kids, right? A boiled egg to make the pain go away.” Dowoon grins, lips stretching over the pale pink of his straw, cheeks squishing with the force of it.

“You’re so cute,” Brian tells him. Dowoon’s smile drops. He doesn’t like the way he can feel his ears go red. He blows out a huff, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ll have you know that I am a fully-functioning twenty-two year old man.”

“Yes,” Brian responds with a hum, “but a cute one,” he adds. “No regular fully-functioning twenty-two year old man would provide a boiled egg for his friend’s injuries. That’s all you, man.”

“What about you, then?” Dowoon asks.

“What about me?” Brian inquires in return. He brings the collar of his shirt up to dab at the corner of his mouth where the blood has mostly stopped flowing, though he knows it’ll stain and he’ll have to take it in to get cleaned. He’s not paying that much attention.

“If I’m a cute, fully-functioning twenty-two year old, then what will you be?”

Brian simply hums in response, pondering. “A non-functioning twenty-four year old with a bad temper and thrifting habit, of course,” he says with his tiger grin. Dowoon scoffs at him.

“Don’t sell yourself short, hyung,” he says, “you’re clearly a _somewhat_ -functioning twenty-four year old with a bad temper and a thrifting habit. And I think you only have a bad temper when your reputation calls for it.”  
“Yoon Dowoon, do not underestimate how much of an insufferable asshole I am.”

“You are so soft,” Dowoon says. “Don’t even try that.”

“Only for you,” Brian tells him; wistful.

-

“You’re sad,” Brian points out after a while, and it’s true. Dowoon is sad. There’s a long list of reasons as to why, those of which he would rather not go into with too much detail, but fuck, he thought he’d been hiding it pretty well. “Why are you sad?”

Dowoon looks down at his hands, fingers and palms rough and calloused from days of playing the drums relentlessly. He begins to play mindlessly with his fingers when he responds. “It’s that day,” he says quietly, hoping Brian catches on.

“Oh,” Brian says once it hits him. It gets the kind of quiet that’s not really quiet for a moment. The trees still whistle in the breeze. The neon OPEN sign is still humming steadily. Brian’s foot is still tapping under the table. “Do you miss him?” Brian asks after a few long moments of this not-quiet, and Dowoon really has to think about his answer.

“I don’t necessarily miss _him_ , I think I just miss the feeling of being with someone like that, you know? I mean, we were together for nearly three years. It would have been three years today.”

Brian scoffs. “What kind of dickhead breaks up with someone a month before their three year anniversary?”

Dowoon gives a half-assed shrug. “Kim Wonpil, I guess.” Brian thinks that might be Dowoon’s way of making a joke to lighten the situation, but he doesn’t laugh. “Like I said,” he adds, “I miss the feeling of being with someone in that way. I liked being to wake up with someone on my chest and having them kiss me even though we both had morning breath. I liked being held. I guess I just miss being in love.”

“Yeah,” Brian tells him, to which part he’s responding to, Dowoon is unsure. “I get that, Woon. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Dowoon sits back and ponders for a moment. There’s lots of things Brian could do for him. He could sit and listen to Dowoon rant about how things are different now and how Wonpil was so pretty and that now nothing will the be same, or how he’s almost over it and he feels almost bad about it, or how the love died out without him even realizing, because he was head over heels and Wonpil’s love fizzled out long before he’d ever actually noticed. Brian could stay with him and fill in Wonpil’s place in the best way he can, but that comes with one thing that Dowoon misses a lot and he’s not sure he’s okay asking for it.

“There might be,” Dowoon tells him, “but I’m not sure it’s appropriate of me to be asking.” He hopes to any higher power that when Brian catches on he isn’t disgusted. The last thing Dowoon needs is losing another person in his life over something trivial. Dowoon can tell when Brian catches on, because he eyes the colour in Dowoon’s cheeks and ears and grins, but it drops as soon as it appears.

“Look,” he says, “if you’re asking what I think you’re asking me, I’m not upset or grossed out, or whatever. There are so many worse things you could be asking me, you know that? Taking you upstairs and letting me have my way with you is literally in the top ten.” Dowoon’s ears grow a deeper shade of crimson. “If you’re asking me-- if you want me to have sex with you, I won’t deny you of that, Dowoon.”

Dowoon purses his lips. “It’s not out of pity, is it?”

“With you?” Brian asks. “Never.”

 

  
The second stage, the finale, the climax, the settling, goes like this:

It’s five o’clock in the morning when Dowoon wakes up, an ungodly hour, he’s aware, but the time doesn’t phase him. What phases him is the empty space beside him. The moon is still high in the sky and the world is still dead, quiet, unbelievably calm; Dowoon relishes in this. He’s still unclothed, bare against the soft sheets of his bed, his hair a tattered mess and his eyes drooping at the corners. He rubs the sleep out of them. Dowoon runs his fingers over the empty space just because. The spot next to him is warm, as though Brian had only just lefts moment before.

He wonders why Brian left; maybe he’s overthinking things again and he’s just gone to the bathroom, or gone to the kitchen to grab a snack, because that seemed a very Brian thing to do at five in the morning. Maybe it was out of pity. Maybe Dowoon had caused a load of trouble in asking in the first place to have Brian like this. He shakes his head and turns on the lamp on his bedside table. A sheet of paper catches his attention.

 _Dowoon,_ it reads, _if you wake up and wonder where I am, I needed a smoke and some time to think. I’m at the park down the street if you want to come here, but I’ll be back eventually._

Dowoon smiles softly to himself and kicks his legs over the side of the bed. He slips on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, then makes for the door.

-

Brian is sat on the swings, chains squeaking gently against their hinges as he rocks back and forth, eyeing the cigarette butt he’s just put out with the sole of his boot. He doesn’t smoke often, his high tolerance for all things addiction allowing him to smoke freely. It only happens once in a while, when he’s been thinking too much and lets things get to his head, or when he needs to calm his nerves.

The wind is blowing gently, enough to rustle the leaves on their branches but not enough to do much more than that. It’s nipping gently at his nose. The moon is still hung high in the sky, but Brian can see the tiniest sliver of sunlight over the horizon; the start of a new day. The cut on his lip stings and the bruise on his cheek is tender, but he’s had worse pain inflicted on him. The events of last night are playing through his head; lips on heated skin and the shortness of breath, the first time he’s ever felt that close to Dowoon physically, mentally, whatever. He doesn’t regret it in the slightest, he wishes it lasted longer. Brian can’t recall the last time anyone’s made him feel the way Dowoon had.

Dowoon makes him feel that way all of the time, Brian realizes three quarters of the way through another cigarette, it had just been amplified the night prior. He can’t describe the feeling, really, even though he’s had years of experience and he should know, he doesn’t. It’s like feeling at the top of world then having an anxiety attack immediately after, a sweet and sour mix of good and bad that Brian can hardly even begin to comprehend, let alone name.

 _It’s love!_ part of him screams, and he physically shakes his head. It can’t be love. Platonically, sure, of course, but Brian has never done love. Not well at least. He’s not so good at it, and he’s had to learn that the hard way more times than he’d like to admit. _Well, if not love, then what?_ Brian doesn’t know. The sound of footsteps echoing in the empty park cause Brian to toss his cigarette and tip his head back to the starry sky.

Someone sits down beside him on the swingset; he flips his black bangs out of his eyes. It’s Dowoon, he can tell from the sweater sleeve-covered hands and the worn down vans that it’s Dowoon, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s five-thirty. He came to think, not to converse. He thinks that Dowoon gets that, which he’s grateful for. Brian watches Dowoon grip the chains of the swing and kick his feet out of the corner of his eye. The swing picks up a few times, then dies down. Dowoon repeats this process a few more times, then stops all together. Brian thinks he must have gotten tired of it.

“You still smoke?” Dowoon asks after a while. The breeze has died down and it’s nearly silent without the leaves rustling. A car drives by in the distance.

“Sometimes,” Brian responds. “Only when I’m thinking.”

“You think all the time, hyung,” Dowoon points out. Brian can hear the coy smile on his lips. “What are you thinking about?”

“Well,” Brian starts, but the words get lost behind his lips. “Where do you want me to start?” he asks, because he can’t seem to spit out the truth.

“Anywhere,” Dowoon says, “I can’t read your mind, hyung.”

Brian scoffs to that. “I was thinking about you,” he says.

“About me?”

Brian nods. “I woke up at around three. You were still asleep and I couldn’t seem to drift off so I just sat and watched you for a while. Is that creepy? You looked so pretty. The moonlight was shining in through your window so it wasn’t completely dark and I could just make out the way the sheets pooled around you; the marks on your chest; the way your lips were parted and your breath came out in little puffs. This sounds creepy, god, I swear I’m not trying to be weird I just got distracted.”

Brian still doesn’t look at Dowoon, but he can hear him shake his head. “It’s not creepy, or weird, I promise. Keep going.”

“After I came out here, I was just sort of thinking about what happened last night. I don’t know how to describe that bit, use your imagination. It was good for me, was it good for you?”

“Would it sound gross and cheesy if I said that it was one of the best nights I’ve ever spent with you?”

“Gross and cheesy?” Brian asks. “Definitely. But it means a lot, so I think you’re good, Woonie. Anyways, I think that I’m overthinking everything and it’s making everything confusing. Do you understand?” Dowoon’s hand brushes his between the swings.

“I think so. If it’s any consolation I was the same way about twenty minutes ago and then I walked here and everything cleared itself up for me.” Brian only hummed in response, linking their pinkies.

“And what cleared it up for you?” he asks.

“You, I think.”

Brian finally turns to him. The rising sun is setting a golden glow to Dowoon’s skin; eyes sparkling against the light. His lips are still tinted red from where Brian has kissed him mercilessly earlier, still chapped but still so kissable. His hair is messy both from the sex and having been slept on, but he still looks beautiful.

Yeah, Brian thinks. Maybe it’s love.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](http://twitter.com/hfkyounghyun)


End file.
